Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Disruptive Library Technology Jester

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Peter E. Murray

Library technologist, open source advocate, striving to think globally while acting locally

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  • Seeking consultants to create decision support tools for open source software selection

    My employer (LYRASIS) is seeking to engage consultants to create decision support tools in the form of whitepapers, self-guided assessments, and worksheets for libraries considering open source software. This work is funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help libraries of all types determine if open …

     Posted on  August 30, 2011
     and last updated August 31, 2011
     ·  1 minutes reading time
  • How Do You Decide To Use Open Source Software and What Software to Use?

    As part of the Mellon Foundation grant funding the start-up of LYRASIS Technology Services, LTS is to produce a series of tools that enable libraries to decide whether open source is right for their environments. The grant says:

    Identify useful tools that can support decision-making and create free, web-based versions …

     Posted on  August 01, 2011
     and last updated August 01, 2011
     ·  3 minutes reading time
  • Seeking feedback on database design for an open source software registry

    As part of the Mellon Foundation grant funding the start-up of LYRASIS Technology Services, LTS is establishing a registry to provide in-depth comparative, evaluative, and version information about open source products. This registry will be free for viewing and editing (all libraries, not just LYRASIS members, and any provider offering …

     Posted on  July 15, 2011
     and last updated July 15, 2011
     ·  2 minutes reading time
  • Thursday Threads: Open Source in Health Care, The Big Deal, Archives of Web Pages

    We're taking a break this week from the HarperCollins e-book story; although the commentary continues from librarians (and a few authors), there hasn't been anything new (that I've seen) from HarperCollins itself. There is still plenty more to look at, though. First up is a report from the health care …

     Posted on  March 17, 2011
     and last updated January 15, 2018
     ·  5 minutes reading time
  • The Challenges and Rewards of Open Source

    Note!Below is the text of an article I wrote for the LYRASIS member newsletter in which I talk about how a community of users of open source software is as important (if not more so) than the code. I'm reposting it here for the DLTJ readership.



    One of the challenging …

     Posted on  March 09, 2011
     and last updated March 09, 2011
     ·  2 minutes reading time
  • Thursday Threads: Websites for Small Libraries, Open Source in Govt, Measuring Reliability

    It has been the longest of weeks and the shortest of weeks. Longest because of a working weekend with the ALA Midwinter conference in San Diego. Shortest because the activities leading up to, during, and after the conference didn't leave much time for reading items to prepare a DLTJ Thursday …

     Posted on  January 13, 2011
     and last updated January 13, 2011
     ·  4 minutes reading time
  • Thursday Threads: Ebooks in Libraries, Prognostications for the Year, Open Source Adoption, Public Domain Day

    The turn of the year brings commentary on the past 12 months and thoughts on the future. This edition of DLTJ Thursday Threads looks at the relationship between libraries and electronic books with an offer by Sony to explain e-reader hardware to libraries and an opinion piece that libraries need …

     Posted on  January 06, 2011
     and last updated January 06, 2011
     ·  10 minutes reading time
  • When Closed Source Companies Contribute to Open Source Communities

    I was reading a story last week about the Linux Foundation's third annual report [PDF] of the Linux kernel, and in it was a section that talked about the affiliation of the programmers that contributed to the development of the kernel. This got me thinking about the affiliation of …

     Posted on  December 16, 2010
     and last updated December 17, 2010
     ·  5 minutes reading time
  • Thursday Threads: Refining Data, Ebook Costs, Open Bibliographic Data, Copyright Infringement

    It has been a long week, so for many of you this edition of DLTJ Thursday Threads will actually be read on Friday. The spirit was willing, the topics were certainly out there in the past seven days, but the necessary distractions were numerous. Please enjoy this edition whenever you …

     Posted on  November 11, 2010
     and last updated November 12, 2010
     ·  4 minutes reading time
  • Now Working for LYRASIS

    News of my joining Lyrasis has been officially reported ("Timothy Daniels and Peter Murray to Lead LYRASIS Technology Services" [PDF]) so I can talk about it here now. On September 10th I left OhioLINK to join LYRASIS on September 13th as the assistant director for the newly emerging LYRASIS Technology …

     Posted on  September 28, 2010
     and last updated September 29, 2010
     ·  1 minutes reading time
  • Extensible Catalog Project Seeking Developers in Innovative Ways

    Last month, the eXtensible Catalog (XC) project posted job openings for Java developers. These are short-term, grant-funded projects and, having been on the hiring side of that equation before myself, I know how difficult it is to get good people for a one- or two-year project. The XC posting is …

     Posted on  February 11, 2010
     and last updated February 11, 2010
     ·  1 minutes reading time
  • A Thread of Comments on the OLE Project Draft Report

    Carl Grant, president of Ex Libris North America, posted a pair of messages on his corporate blog that it is worth calling attention to regarding the OLE Project final report, if you haven't already run into them: OLE; The unanswered questions and Library Software Solutions - We need a higher level …

     Posted on  August 31, 2009
     and last updated September 01, 2009
     ·  3 minutes reading time
  • FulfILLment from Equinox Selected for Statewide Resource Sharing System

    This is an announcement posted by the State Library of Ohio regarding the selection of FulfILLment from Equinox for a statewide resource sharing system.

    OPEN SOURCE STATEWIDE RESOURCE SHARING SYSTEM PROPOSAL FROM EQUINOX HAS BEEN ACCEPTED.

    The State Library of Ohio is pleased to announce Equinox Software Inc. has been …

     Posted on  March 20, 2009
     and last updated March 20, 2009
     ·  1 minutes reading time
  • Aligning Clashing Values

    This started out as a comment to a posting by Chris Coppola, president and co-founder of rSmart Group. The comment got longer and threaded with yesterday's posting about the nature of BioMed Central, so I moved it to this posting on DLTJ. For those in the library community who are …

     Posted on  August 14, 2007
     and last updated August 14, 2007
     ·  2 minutes reading time
  • Educational Patents, Open Access Journals, and Clashing Values

    This posting has two goals -- first, to introduce DLTJ readers to the notion of "Educational Patents" or "edupatents" and provide an update on events of this week. Second, to frame the sometimes contentious interaction between academic institutions and supporting businesses as one of "clashing values." The former serves as a …

     Posted on  August 10, 2007
     and last updated August 10, 2007
     ·  6 minutes reading time
  • "Show Me The Code!!!" -or- It Isn't Open Source Until We Can See the Source

    Show Me the Money! There are days that I feel like Tom Cruise. No, I have no idea what it is like to be married to Nicole Kidman or Katie Holmes and I don't have the secrets of Scientology. Let me rephrase: there are days that I feel like Jerry Macguire, the character Tom …

     Posted on  July 26, 2007
     and last updated July 26, 2007
     ·  3 minutes reading time
  • Stereotypical Vendors?

    Recent posts by Richard Wallis and Paul Miller, both of Talis (a 40-year-old company in the U.K. specializing in information and metadata management), question a perceived division of library automation vendor technical staff with that of open source solution technical staff. I wasn't at Code4Lib this year (I'm going …

     Posted on  March 31, 2007
     and last updated March 31, 2007
     ·  5 minutes reading time
  • Open Source for Open Repositories — New Models for Software Development and Sustainability

    This is a summary of a presentation by James L. Hilton, Vice President and CIO of University of Virginia, at the opening keynote session of Open Repositories 2007. I tried to capture the esessence of his presentation, and omissions, contradictions, and inaccuracies in this summary are likely mine and not …

     Posted on  January 24, 2007
     and last updated January 25, 2007
     ·  8 minutes reading time
  • Scripted Searches for Java Code in Popular Source Code Search Engines

    Sometimes the best way to solve a programming problem is to see how others have done the same thing. When that happens, having immediate access to the various search engines helps get you back on track quickly. Here are OpenSearch plug-ins (suitable for Firefox and MSIE7) that will search the …

     Posted on  January 19, 2007
     and last updated January 19, 2007
     ·  6 minutes reading time
  • Looking Forward to Version 2.2 of FEDORA

    Sandy Payette, Co-Director of the Fedora Project and Researcher in the Cornell Information Science department, announced a tentative date for the release 2.2 of the FEDORA digital object repository.

    The Fedora development team would like to announce that Fedora 2.2 will be released on Friday, January 19, 2007 …

     Posted on  December 31, 2006
     and last updated January 01, 2007
     ·  5 minutes reading time